When I think of a season of celebration (weddings, graduations, spring birthdays, etc.), I think of photos—partly because I take a ton of them and partly because I used to work in photo labs so I know I'm not the only one who does! These days, when digital means we can take hundreds more without paying for film or developing, it makes more sense to share our photos with friends and family in digital form rather than print them all out, so I love the idea of packaging seemingly impersonal photo discs in custom-made fabric cases. Give the newlyweds a beautiful handmade case full of thousands of photos everyone took at their wedding, or give your graduating BFF a case full of all the silly shots taken throughout the college years!

If you are an experienced quilter, I'm sure you could make a better version of this project, and I'd love to see what you do; my methods may not be traditional, but it worked! I used three layers of cheap felt inside the fabric to make it thick and padded—you can use something else besides felt if you have something better.

Start out by cutting one piece of felt about a half inch bigger on all sides than two CD sleeves next to each other, like this:

My felt piece was cut about 6 inches by 12 inches.

Use this piece as a template to cut more felt pieces for your padding and your two fabric pieces—cut the two pieces about an inch taller and wider than the felt piece. I cut one more felt piece twice as tall so it folds over to be double thickness, making three felt layers total including the original felt piece.

You should have three layers of felt and two rectangles of fabric a bit bigger than the felt.

Sew the two fabric pieces together, with right sides facing, along the long top and bottom but not along the short sides.

I hand-sewed everything for this case, but you can definitely use a machine.

Comments (5)

EchoLin writes: Love the red color and the style, good pattern.
Posted: 4:05 am on April 17th

SweetbriarStudio writes: This is such a great idea for a lot of occasions. I was just thinking it would be great to consolidate all the family photos we've scanned in (from really, really old photos) and give them to our daughter who had almost none of them. Kind of a geneology boxset :). But I also have 2 great girlfriends, college roomies, and we have spent many a rendezvous together. Maybe I'll take all my photos and put together a roomie album. Thanks so much!
Posted: 6:31 pm on June 17th

ButtonsandSweetpees writes: This is a fabulous idea. I am the photograher around my house. I this would be a really good idea to make for the parents of my step-grandparents for Christmas. It could be Pictures on CD of the year and a DVD of video I've taken through out the year. Thank you so much for sharing.
Posted: 11:07 am on May 13th

JennieC writes: Very lovely. Great gift idea.
Posted: 6:30 pm on May 12th